The Light That Never Was

by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

  “I know the area.”

  “Jorno evidently has or had an interest in agriculture. He introduced a new fiber plant there, tarff, persuaded farmers to try it, and even financed a marketing organization to handle it.”

  “I don’t recall hearing anything about that,” Korak mused. “It’s a poor agricultural region. How’d the fiber do?”

  “Very well. It thrives in that particular rocky soil. Unfortunately, there’s no market for it on Donov. Its processing requires huge amounts of cheap labor. The farmers have accepted quotas, though, and they’re growing just enough to export at times of peak demand on other worlds, and it’s resulted in small cash incomes for them, which they desperately needed. From their point of view that certainly was a Good Work. Jorno is very popular down there.”

  “Interesting. What with his importing alien plants and participating in interworld organizations, he must have far-flung contacts.”

  “He has his own space yacht—Donov registry.”

  “It’s odd that the one group of refugees he mentioned should be from Mestil,” Korak observed. “Any new developments there?”

  “No, and there won’t be any.”

  “I’m very much afraid we’ll have to do something about Ronony Gynth.”

  “So am I, but I keep hoping that we won’t. An elaborate spy organization is amusing to watch, not to mention educational. Of course hidden microphones are one thing and outright acts of burglary are something else. I knew about the filmstrips the day Colyff received them, and I also knew that Ronony would find out that he had them. So I posted a scan on Colyff’s home and office, and four of Ronony’s best men were caught in the act. Neither she nor the embassy dares to show any interest in them. They think we’re rather naive, but they don’t go so far as to consider us fools. As for the refugees—why not accept them on Donov?”

  Korak smiled sadly. “The young really can’t appreciate man’s capacity for hatred.”

  “I still have the conviction that the riots followed—are following—a plan, but I suppose hatred is as susceptible to manipulation as any other emotion.”

  “The problem is difficult to comprehend on Donov, because we have no animaloids. The occasional visitor is an object of curiosity rather than animosity. Where animaloids exist in large numbers, humans come to fear them—in some instances with good reason, I might add, but that isn’t true of any of the riot worlds. Obviously fear can lead to hatred for no reason at all. The Quorum would certainly refuse to admit them. Have you anything else?”

  “Perhaps. According to a news item, one of the animaloids killed in the rioting on Sornor was an artist.”

  Korak leaned forward. “What artist?”

  “He lived on Donov for many years and was quite well known here. He went by the name of Franff. I remember him myself—I saw him when I was a child. He handled the sprayers with his mouth. Attracted crowds wherever he went. He was a rather good artist.”

  “I missed the news item,” Korak said. “Franff was more than a rather good artist—he was one of the celebrities of his day and a friend and companion of a host of immortals. He was more than that, even. He was Franff. He was unique. Several of his paintings are masterpieces. Has there been talk about this?”

  “Only among the older artists. He seems to have been a popular character. Are artists more tolerant than other humans?”

  “Animaloid artists are rare, and one per generation isn’t a fair test. I’ll answer that when I’ve seen their reaction to a thousand. Anything else?”

  “I’ve recently attempted an investigation among artists, and I made no headway at all because I have very few contacts. This reminded me that Eritha wants to study art.”

  “She merely wants to go off and live like an artist,” Korak said disgustedly. “She sees something childishly romantic about it.”

  “Yes, sir. And because of certain developments I badly need some one who is childishly romantic enough to be willing to live like an artist.”

  “What sort of developments?”

  “Some days ago an animaloid artist was killed in the rioting on Sornor. Yesterday Harnasharn Galleries opened a special exhibit of paintings by an anonymous artist.”

  “Are you suggesting that there’s a connection?” Korak demanded.

  “Anonymous exhibitions are extremely rare. There hasn’t been one in Donov Metro for at least five years—probably much longer, but five years is as far back as I checked.”

  “An animaloid artist is killed on Sornor,” Korak mused, “and Harnasharn opens an anonymous exhibit. Of that artist’s painting?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Did you see the exhibit?”

  “Of course. I consulted the Artists’ Index both before and afterward. I’m no art expert, but it doesn’t take one to see that Franff’s registered work is totally different from the paintings in the special exhibit. He was a visualist, painted precisely what he saw. What an animaloid sees isn’t what a human sees, but in Franff’s case the differences aren’t strange, they’re merely charming. The Harnasharn paintings aren’t of this universe.”

  “Indeed. What universe are they of?”

  “I couldn’t say. Looking at them gives one contradictory sensations—the hauntingly familiar and the completely improbable. It’s like arriving in a fantastically strange place that you didn’t know existed and having the feeling that you’ve been there before.”

  “They must be rather good, or Harnasharn wouldn’t exhibit them.”

  “I’d say they’re rather good. They’re finished. When art falls short of perfection, I have the feeling that the artist either should have stopped sooner or continued until he accomplished whatever it was he was trying to do. A great painting is finished. Nothing that doesn’t belong, nothing left out. It simply is. These paintings are. If they have a flaw it’s because the paint is applied in a way I never saw before. They look as though they were woven, rather than painted. That may distract only because it takes a bit of getting used to. I rather liked the things.”

  “I still don’t see the connection between Franff’s death and this exhibit.”

  “Maybe there isn’t any. I couldn’t help wondering about it because these paintings are so different. They could represent a view of the universe never revealed to any human artist. If they were done by an animaloid, perhaps when Harnasharn heard about the death of Franff he was discreet enough to exhibit them anonymously.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Harnasharn, but what if he did?”

  “Wouldn’t it be wise to prepare for trouble just in case the word leaks out and the people of Donov, not to mention the artists, have more animosity than we suspect?”

  “Go down to the Licensing Bureau,” Korak said. “Find out precisely when Harnasharn licensed this exhibit and how he described it. Then see if you can find the date that news about Franff’s death first reached Donov.”

  Wargen did so and returned with the information that Harnasharn had posted the exhibit as that of an anonymous artist five days before Franff had been declared dead on Sornor and nine days before the news reached Donov. He said sheepishly, “I’m retiring from the field of art criticism.”

  “No, you’re not,” Korak told him. “I doubt that you understand it yourself, but you have an instinctive awareness of such things. Never hesitate to pursue it. These riots have been going on for weeks, and even without the death of Franff, an art dealer on Donov might consider them ample reason for exhibiting an animaloid’s paintings anonymously. Obviously this exhibit merits our attention.”

  “I’ll keep an eye on it.”

  “Our attention.” Resignedly Korak pushed himself to his feet. “How shall we go?”

  “As tourists,” Wargen said. “A tourist’s costume excuses anything.”

  “Even a blind man attending an art exhibit?” Korak asked, chuckling. “Bring the costumes.”

  Those who knew world government thought of Korak, not as Donov’s manager, but as its creator. H
e had taken an impoverished, mineral-poor, backward agricultural world and made it one of the leading tourist and vacation centers of the galaxy. He had accomplished this with a stroke of genius of such breath-taking magnitude that few even comprehended how he could have thought of such a thing. Donov had nothing to offer tourists—no facilities, no attractions that were not available in better quantity and quality on dozens of competing worlds, nothing whatsoever of distinction except, in certain regions of its subtropics, a dazzling splendor of light. And what could light possibly mean to a tourist?

  For that matter, what could it mean to a world manager?

  Few were aware of Korak’s guilty secret, that in his misspent youth he had aspired to be an artist. He had, alas, a paucity of talent, and he’d been honest enough and wise enough to recognize that fact early and turn to another profession, but he remained enough of an artist to recognize perfect light when he saw it. As a young man just out of Qwant University, he had come to Donov to he interviewed for the manager’s position, and like fifty candidates before him he had been appalled by what he found there.

  But he courteously took the inspection tour that had been arranged for him, and he saw that light, the wondrous, inimitable artists’ light that flooded the Donovian seacoasts. He accepted a job that no one else wanted and remained a long lifetime.

  He had no thought of tourists. He thought only of that glorious light being wasted, and out of his miserable budget and over the indignant protests of a grumbling, miserly World Quorum, he created a dozen fellowships, offering passage money and a starvation subsistence to promising young artists who would agree to work for a year on Donov. He established them in a picturesque old fishing village on the Zrilund cliffs and told them to paint, and when their first work was shipped off to agents on other worlds it created a sensation. The deluge of artists followed, tourists began to make pilgrimages to the scenes immortalized in paint, and from that point any shrewd world manager could have exploited the situation and Korak was shrewder than most. In a single generation Donov became one of the leading art centers of the galaxy and Korak had begun the extensive development of resort hotels and vacation centers—on beaches, in the mountains, even in Donov’s diminutive deserts—that would eventually give the tourist trade a foundation solid enough for it to survive even when the tourists became jaded with the glories of Donovian art.

  The world prospered on the lavish exchange provided by tourists and vacationers, millionaires came in droves to establish vacation homes, natives left their impoverished agricultural holdings and received fantastic salaries as servants, cooks, chauffeurs, and guides. Many saved their money and established their own resorts or devised a flood of novel attractions to please the tourists and enable them to spend their money. To the native Donovians, the only blight on all of this prosperity was the presence of the untidy, undisciplined artists whose predecessors had started it all, but as long as Donov had perfect light and Ian Korak as world manager, it would have great art colonies.

  Korak’s only regrets were that the afflictions of age denied him enjoyment of the new generation of artists, and that he could no longer experience the pulse-quickening pleasure of gazing at Donov’s glowing landscapes and seascapes under a perfect artists’ light.

  Wargen brought the costumes—hats with huge flopping brims and half-length cloaks, all in a melange of gaudy colors. Donovian peasants had once worn hats and cloaks vaguely like them for field work on sunny days. For reasons never fathomed, the tourists made the costume their own, with the inevitable result that the peasants indignantly discarded it. Artists had satirized and caricatured cloaked and hatted tourists mercilessly, but the first act of many tourists was to envelop themselves in this monstrous clothing. It was an excellent costume for long periods of exertion in the sun—which was, of course, the last use to which any tourist would subject it.

  A successful tourist trade was not without its price, and some of the expressions once applied to artists—pollution, epidemic, seizure, and so on—were now directed at tourists.

  Wargen inspected Korak, gave the wide brim of his hat a crease that concealed his face, and nodded approval. Korak took his arm for support, and they moved toward the private elevator.

  The exhibit, Eight Paintings by an Anonymous Artist, had received only the routine publicity announcements and as yet no critical comment, and it was attracting a very modest attendance. Korak found this disappointing. The eight widely spaced paintings held no interest at all for him—he saw them only as blurs in bright ovals of illumination. He wanted to study the reactions of those viewing them.

  “Nine,” Wargen whispered, looking about the room. “Hualt, the art critic, and his wife. I don’t recognize any of the others.”

  It was a solemn, introspective group of art viewers whom they passed, one or two at a time, as they circled the room. The critic completed his own circuit and started another. Passing him, Korak remarked in subdued tremolo, “It’s something, but surely they don’t call it art!” Hualt paid no attention. They continued to circle the room, spectators came and went, and except for a newly arrived woman in tourist costume who asked her companion what possible value a painting could have if it had no people in it, Korak perceived no reaction that he could get a grip on.

  “Harnasharn just looked in,” Wargen whispered. “He recognized us—he winked at me.”

  “Let’s go see him,” Korak said.

  Harnasharn had disappeared, but Wargen solemnly informed the receptionist that they wanted to arrange for an appraisal of an early work of Zornillo’s, and a moment later the art dealer strode quickly into the room. He stopped short when he saw them, and said, a note of disappointment in his voice, “Come this way, please.”

  A genuine art dealer, Korak reflected. The owner of a Zornillo was more welcome in his galleries than a world manager.

  He led them to his private office, placed a chair for Korak, and proffered another to Wargen, who shook his head and remained standing.

  “This is an unexpected honor, Excellency,” Harnasharn said.

  Korak said wryly, “You mean that the blind don’t often come to look at paintings. Neither did I. I came to listen to reactions to paintings, and there don’t seem to be any.”

  “Few of our viewers know what to make of them,” Harnasharn said. “Even the critics are bewildered. Hualt has been here four times, and he just left shaking his head. I wouldn’t have thought, though, that any kind of public reaction to an art exhibit would be momentous enough to occasion a visit from the World Manager.”

  “I sincerely hope that you’re right. Lester, are those paintings by any chance the work of an animaloid?”

  “Do you ask out of curiosity, or is this in some way a matter of governmental concern?”

  “It could be a matter of governmental concern.”

  “I have a solemn pledge to honor, but I’m confident that I can transfer it to the two of you. In strict confidence—yes, the artist of those paintings is animaloid.”

  “Did you consider that exhibiting them at this time might be risky?”

  “Risky!” Harnasharn exclaimed, obviously astonished. “Why would it be risky?”

  Korak leaned forward. “Is it conceivable that you aren’t aware of the unfortunate events on some of our neighboring worlds?”

  “I never gave it a thought! Nothing like that has ever happened here.”

  “Violence on that scale has never happened anywhere, but it’s happening now. What I’d like to know is how you happened to stage this exhibit at this particular time.”

  “The paintings became available. They’re great paintings. Why should I withhold them?”

  “I see.”

  “Do you really think this exhibit could cause trouble?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you want me to close it?”

  “No. Thus far there hasn’t been any talk or—Wargen?—even a hint of a rumor.”

  “None at all,” Wargen said.

  �
��If you closed it there might be. There is, or was, a woman there who made the remark that no painting was valuable if it didn’t have people in it. Under the circumstances that’s suggestive.”

  “Will you point her out to me?” Harnasharn asked Wargen. Wargen did so, and Harnasharn spoke with the attendant and then told Korak, “She entered on a second-division student card from the Institute, meaning that she’s studying art history or criticism. The Institute has hundreds of such students, and I doubt that anyone takes their opinions seriously. At least, I hope not. Do you want me to find out who she is?”

  “No.” Korak pushed himself to his feet. “Carry on, keep your mouth shut, and if anything develops or seems to be developing, notify Wargen at once. How much longer does the exhibit have to run?”

  “It’s posted for a month. Then I’d planned to move the paintings into our permanent exhibit.”

  “Have you announced that? Don’t, then.”

  “You don’t want me to move them—”

  “I don’t want you to announce it. Plenty of time for that when the exhibit closes.”

  Harnasharn bowed them out.

  “Strange,” the World Manager said softly. “Your reasoning was entirely wrong, and yet you arrived at a correct conclusion.”

  “As I said before, I’m retiring from the business of art criticism.”

  “Your business is people, and you’re as much an expert there as Harnasharn is with art. The question that worries me is whether anyone else is likely to incorrectly reason his way to the same correct conclusion.” He paused. “I think it would be an excellent idea if Eritha were to study art. You decide where you want her to go.”

  5

  In Donov Metro, capital city of a celebrated world of art, artists in full regalia were paradoxically an uncommon sight. Gof Milfro, face bristling with black whiskers too short to be braided and too long to be curled, untidy turban on his head, a corner of his ragged cloak touching the floor, created a sensation as he marched through the customs office. Waiting claimants scrambled out of his way, clerks and crate handlers gaped, and conveyors suddenly left running without loads clanked and rattled high-pitched protests.